My, my. Why buy Google wi-fi?
Google is offering to provide free wi-fi service throughout San Francisco, but there's a catch. They want to match customers' locations with local advertising to provide targeted ads.
Well, we're going to see more and more of these kind of businesses. It makes sense from many standpoints--San Franciscans get free wireless, the advertisers reach the people that they really want to and Google makes money.
Some people are saying that this is a privacy violation. I think that that's a harsh assessment. Collecting the information doesn't make it a problem. It's what they do with it later, that could be problematic.
If companies like Google could just make a stand and use their technology powers for good, there are ways that they could ensure that the information was never used for any purpose other than the stated one. Then I'd be okay with it. But they won't do that, of course. All that beautiful, valuable data is there to be cherry-picked by government agents or hackers.
As always, the problem is not in the collection, it's the usage.
Posted on April 10, 2006
